Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

When Simon Majumdar hit forty, he realized there had to be more to life than his stable but uninspiring desk job. As he wondered how to escape his career, he rediscovered a list of goals he had scrawled out years before, the last of which said: Go everywhere, eat everything. With that, he had found his mission -- a yearlong search for the delicious, and curious, and the curiously delicious, which he names Eat My Globe and memorably chronicles in these pages.

In Majumdar's world, food is everything. Like every member of his family, he has a savant's memory for meals, with instant recall of dishes eaten decades before. Simon's unstoppable wit and passion for all things edible (especially those things that once had eyes, and a face, and a mom and a pop) makes this an armchair traveler's and foodie's delight -- Majumdar does all the heavy lifting, eats the heavy foods (and suffers the weighty consequences), so you don't have to. He jets to thirty countries in just over twelve months, diving mouth-first into local cuisines and cultures as different as those of Japan and Iceland. His journey takes him from China, where he consumes one of his Top Ten Worst Eats, stir-fried rat, to the United States, where he glories in our greatest sandwiches: the delectable treasures of Katz's Delicatessen in Manhattan, BBQ in Kansas and Texas, the still-rich po' boys of post-Katrina New Orleans.

The meat of the story -- besides the peerless ham in Spain, the celebrated steaks of Argentina, the best of Munich's wursts as well as their descendants, the famous hot dogs of Chicago -- is the friends that Simon makes as he eats. They are as passionate about food as he is and are eager to welcome him to their homes and tables, share their choicest meals, and reveal their local secrets. Also a poignant memoir, Eat My Globe is a life told through food and spiced with Majumdar's remembrances of foods past, including those from his colorful childhood. (Raised in Northern England, he is the son of a fiery Welsh nurse and a distinguished Bengali surgeon.) A captivating look at one man's passion for food, family, and unique life experiences, Eat My Globe will make you laugh -- while it makes you hungry. It is sure to satiate any gastronome obsessed with globetrotting -- for now.

Review

"In this ballsy, often hilarious foodie travelogue, British blogger Majumdar sets out on a yearlong, round-the-world flavor forage. At the age of 40, Majumdar found his old note-to-self: 'go everywhere and eat everything.' In search of out-of-comfort-zone foodstuffs like Mongolian fermented mare's milk, he quit his loathed publishing job and, still mourning his mother's recent death, he sketched out, booked and impressively adhered to an itinerary from the U.K. to every continent except Antarctica. Unpleasant surprises included cod sperm sushi in Kyoto, but his experiences and descriptions, however brief, of the global gastronomic sublime, such as his sunset supper in the Filipino countryside, are appetite-whetting, and his take-no-prisoners attitude and opinions match the project's ambitions. He champions street-food surprises over more urbane examples of cuisine, while his affection and gratitude for the individuals and families met and the hospitality received amply humanized both his wanderings and writings. Majumdar's comic-yet-brazen voice carries the reader swiftly and winningly from foul to fowl in a book that's funny and delectable." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

Review

"Majumdar writes like a dream and eats like a pig. It's a killer combination. Eat My Globe is a very funny, very hungry book, much like its author." -- Jay Rayner, author of The Man who Ate The World

Review

"Eat My Globe is part travelogue, part personal memoir, part food journal, and part performance art, as Simon Majumdar travels the planet and consumes the full spectrum of cuisine -- from the haute to the horrifying -- establishing himself as an Indiana Jones for the foodie set." -- Andrew Friedman, co-editor of Don't Try This At Home

Review

"Simon adores pulled pork, yet pulls no punches in this passionate, refreshingly honest and delicious journey. Traveling with him on his gut-busting world tour is a rollicking good time. By the end, you'll want to to sit with him over a few martinis to plot a meal, even if it's just some hoofed animal's meat on a stick in a developing country. Read only with a well-stocked fridge; you'll get hungry." -- Kathleen Flinn, author of The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry

Review

"Eat My Globe is a culinary tour de force that mixes an irrepressible enthusiasm for the world of food with a celebration of the people who prepare it. Majumdar is without question the world's most enthusiastic gourmet. His love of eatingor rather feastingis so infectious that we never turned a page without feeling an overwhelming urge to eat great food, roam the Earth, and read another page." -- Andrew Rimas and Evan Fraser, authors of BEEF: The Untold Story of How Milk, Meat, and Muscle Shaped the World

Synopsis

With the same incisive wit and nose for quality as Anthony Bourdain, Majumdar--an internationally popular food savant and blogger--chronicles his yearlong journey around the world in search of everything delicious, odd, and oddly delicious. 20 b&w photos.

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What Our Readers Are Saying

Average customer rating 4 (1 comments)

Eat My Globe: One Year to go Everywhere and Eat Everything says it all in a nutshell. This is Simon Majumdar's book of the year he spent traveling the world and trying to sample or gorge on every foodstuff he could conceivably find. What the title doesn' t tell is that his quest ended up being as much about the people behind the food as it was about the food itself. We quickly find that if Simon is rhapsodizing about a meal he is likely to be in someone's home and the food is likely to be handmade and eaten with the host or hostess and their family.
So this is a foodie's book cataloging amazing and amazingly terrible meals, but it is also a memoir filled with stories of Simon's family, his brother (aka the Great Salami) and his fiery and passionate mother. At points the book naturally evolves into travelogue as Simon moves between Australia and Japan, Iceland, Mexico, and the US. Finally, mercifully, the book is funny. Simon never stops being amazed at his good fortune and seems to feel he has to repay it by eating the most horrendous things including stir fried rat and fermented mare's milk. Along the way he has a few laughs at his own expense and a few more at his brother's expense. What sticks with you in the end is Simon's sincere delight at the generosity of the people he meets on his travels and the delicious food they share with him.